Uploaded February 2011 | Updated September 2026, 5 days ago
This is the near death experience of George Rodonia, killed by the KGB, and according to him, spent three days in a Russian morgue before returning to life. During that period of time, he "saw" a child with a broken hip in the hospital and when revived, told the child's physicians that the child had a previously unrecognized broken hip.
I have met Dr. Redonaia many times over the years. He is an honest sincere medical professional. I attempted to validate his story but was not able to, because of the lack of cooperation of Soviet authorities.
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However, I did validate and find many medically documented cases of persons being left for dead in morgues, even for 3 days. There are such cases in the modern medical literature, of coroners discovering that their cases were alive! So that part of his story checks out.
I have been asked to explain my initial account of Dr Redonaia's narative, in which he told me that he "saw" a fractured arm of an child in a neighbor's home, whereas in this account, he describes diagnosing a fractured hip in a child in the hospital. This was in the early 1990s while we were waiting to appear on Geraldo.
I reported my account in Transformed By the Light, with journalist Paul Perry. I spoke with Dr. Redonaia on several occasions. My best explanations are as follows:
1) Dr. Redonaia was extremely fearful of the KGB when we first met, and rightly so. He pointed to men who looked like KGB right out of central casting on a New York street. Perhaps he altered the story to slightly disguise it.
2) Dr. Redonaia on this video, and when we spoke told me of speaking to many many children. Perhaps these are two separate accounts.
Regardless, I find the entire controversy to be silly and an artifact of the acrimonious Denyer/Believer debate. The near death world has become so sensitized to criticism that they often reframe these controversies into an "either its a lie or its the absolute truth" context. In real life, most of this sort of thing turns out to be a misunderstanding once other previously unknown facts surface.
I don't want to resurrect memories from 15 years ago, but Dr. Redonaia was very eloquent about his experiences while "dead" and the many children he spoke with. Rather than him being a liar, or me being a liar, it is more likely he simply said "and (the case of the hip) is not all, I also saw. . .etc)
Dr. Redonaia was afterwards very helpful in my efforts to validate his story, trying to get medical records from the Old Soviet Union, etc.
I am certain Dr. Redonaia was a sincere truthful man. I stand by my account of what he told me. I don't see this as a significant controversy. If anything, such discrepcencies are reassuring to me that we are dealing with real people telling real stories about real things that happened to them.
This is the near death experience of George Rodonia, killed by the KGB, and according to him, spent three days in a Russian morgue before returning to life. During that period of time, he "saw" a child with a broken hip in the hospital and when revived, told the child's physicians that the child had a previously unrecognized broken hip.
I have met Dr. Redonaia many times over the years. He is an honest sincere medical professional. I attempted to validate his story but was not able to, because of the lack of cooperation of Soviet authorities.
]
However, I did validate and find many medically documented cases of persons being left for dead in morgues, even for 3 days. There are such cases in the modern medical literature, of coroners discovering that their cases were alive! So that part of his story checks out.
I have been asked to explain my initial account of Dr Redonaia's narative, in which he told me that he "saw" a fractured arm of an child in a neighbor's home, whereas in this account, he describes diagnosing a fractured hip in a child in the hospital. This was in the early 1990s while we were waiting to appear on Geraldo.
I reported my account in Transformed By the Light, with journalist Paul Perry. I spoke with Dr. Redonaia on several occasions. My best explanations are as follows:
1) Dr. Redonaia was extremely fearful of the KGB when we first met, and rightly so. He pointed to men who looked like KGB right out of central casting on a New York street. Perhaps he altered the story to slightly disguise it.
2) Dr. Redonaia on this video, and when we spoke told me of speaking to many many children. Perhaps these are two separate accounts.
Regardless, I find the entire controversy to be silly and an artifact of the acrimonious Denyer/Believer debate. The near death world has become so sensitized to criticism that they often reframe these controversies into an "either its a lie or its the absolute truth" context. In real life, most of this sort of thing turns out to be a misunderstanding once other previously unknown facts surface.
I don't want to resurrect memories from 15 years ago, but Dr. Redonaia was very eloquent about his experiences while "dead" and the many children he spoke with. Rather than him being a liar, or me being a liar, it is more likely he simply said "and (the case of the hip) is not all, I also saw. . .etc)
Dr. Redonaia was afterwards very helpful in my efforts to validate his story, trying to get medical records from the Old Soviet Union, etc.
I am certain Dr. Redonaia was a sincere truthful man. I stand by my account of what he told me. I don't see this as a significant controversy. If anything, such discrepcencies are reassuring to me that we are dealing with real people telling real stories about real things that happened to them.
